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Heh, and I was about to suggest that BakaMX and Soldats are pretty oldschool groups :P
Guess I'm just not old-skool enough.
But, yeah, I guess them, Anime-Keep, Anime-One are pretty old schoolish. Heh, how long has ANBU been around?

Although I did view those AnimeFansubs Love Hina episodes ages back (thing that got me into anime really), although I think they'd been out for a while then.
I still say they don't look too bad for files of that size, especially considering their age :P

Heh, and I was about to suggest that BakaMX and Soldats are pretty oldschool groups :P
Guess I'm just not old-skool enough.
But, yeah, I guess them, Anime-Keep, Anime-One are pretty old schoolish. Heh, how long has ANBU been around?

Although I did view those AnimeFansubs Love Hina episodes ages back (thing that got me into anime really), although I think they'd been out for a while then.
I still say they don't look too bad for files of that size, especially considering their age :P

BakaMX started on Christmas Day, 2000, for those who care. BakaMX is actually a very very influential group, if you think about it. They were the first to sub a lot of shows that got much more popular after BakaMX first introduced them. I'm talking about shows like Hajime no Ippo, One Piece, Shaman King, Fruits Basket, Noir, etc

Not to mention from BakaMX we have many groups that evolved, most notably Soldats, Live-eviL, Genbu and Oretachi.

ANBU's first release was Kokoro Library which if I recall was in the late fall of 2001. Anime-Keep first started with around episode 12 of Full Metal Panic, and AnimeOne first began sometime in 2001 as well. A lot of the mainstream big groups today started in 2001.

-Tofu (former BakaMX member)

Edit: OMG, how could I forget Gravitation :P Also, kudos to the original poster for introducing a fresh topic on these forums that is not prone to developing into a flame war. A breath of fresh air ^^

Actually, I believe ANBU was an internal group for a while. I believe one of their first releases was Pretear (in july 2001). E-F is not the oldest...if i remember the history right... there was anime-help.. anime-help split off into E-F and AC split off of them..... E-F also caused a lot of newish groups to form. There was an anime-haven or heaven too way back then subbing love hina in the early days..

I dunno which one is the oldest exactly, but there's a fellow who posts on here by the nick of Access who has been digisubbing pretty much since the start in a variety of fansub groups. I suggest you seek him out for your interview.

-Tofu

Whatever it is, I disavow all knowledge.

The original downloadable MPEG-1's and .rm's were primarly video captures of tapes put out by the VHS/SVHS distros. Of greatly varying quality... distributed in places like Lunarts and animedownload.net and noated.com, etc.

The first bunch of groups digisubbing was #elite-fansubs, #anime-fansubs, #anime-factory. Vandread, Love Hina, etc. Nothing other than shounen, #anime-factory subbed risky+safety but never released (didn't want to be seen as 'girly' group by fans) so not much variety out there at all. Significant personalities: paq (animefactory), devilray and other e-f staff, etc. Avery Lee (VDub creator) was semi-active back then, associated with some of the groups. Security was immense, most groups had countermeasures to protect against spying / infiltration, demanded exclusivity of their members, etc. Paranoia abound.

Then there was groups like #animeco, another group that Soldats eventually broke off from (when subbing Noir -- BakaMX perhaps?) but I can't remember their name, #animejunkies and some fansub-and-commercial-piracy-also groups. Why did groups break off? Politics, choice of stuff to sub, allowances, control, infiltration / spying, personalities, etc. Some of these groups founded by people who had been denied power in the existing groups, not allowed to sub what they wanted to, not allowed to associate with people they wanted to, etc. So better variety was the result, not just primarily shounen, and still only around 10-20 groups. Significant personalities, devilray (from before), jediknight(?) or someone else from e-f, satancow & patapi & recca (animeco), others. There was real variety out there, Angelic Layer, Jungle Guu, Mahoujin Guruguru, Kerokero Chime, Mahoujin Guruguru, etc. Some groups split over series, Soldats was formed from subbing Noir, etc. Other groups had internal problems, but got over them one way or another.

Now you probably have hundreds of groups, and some/many have at least one member who can be traced back to what is mentioned above.

As for ADV, Matt Greenfield had his own group "ADV Fansubs" which he was planning to spin off from ADV but never really did, this is one reason he has such a vandetta against fansubs irl.http://www.animeondvd.com/conitem.php?item=48http://www.ex.org/news/2000_02.html (scroll down a bit)
"ADV announces the formation of ADV FansubsTM, a new release label which has been created to allow the release of quality subtitled video products directly to the fans who want them at an accelerated pace and attractive price structure..."

Patapi and SatanCow? who are they? I don't remember any animeco, I do remember the almighty chanserv and his golden voice, but a patapi and a satancow I do not know. Though i have heard that satancow guy is quite the butthole.

Patapi and SatanCow? who are they? I don't remember any animeco, I do remember the almighty chanserv and his golden voice, but a patapi and a satancow I do not know. Though i have heard that satancow guy is quite the butthole.
--END TRANSMISSION--

If you or any members of your team are captured or fall into enemy hands, the secretary-general will disavow and and all knowledge of your existance.

Access's list is pretty funny, but it also seems to be true. I myself can be traced back to HQA...

Hikari no Kiseki can't claim to be quite as old as AnimeFactory or Anime-Fansubs, but we're still fairly old as far as digisub standards go. With a founding date of May 12, 2001, we are probably closest in age to AnimeCo. I recall they still had an IRC channel on ETG at the time.

We didn't actually release anything until September 12 of that same year (funny, that date is quickly coming up again), but trust me, we had actually existed for the 5 months before that. It's a long story that probably isn't really worth telling though.

Anime-Fansubs and Animefactory are for sure the two oldest digisub groups (actual digisub) Elite-Fansubs might be alongside them but I don't know much about how they started. Animeco and HQA are in the next tier I think. I would know because my group (Infinite-Zero, formerly known as Ignition-One) have been around since before groups like Soldats, Animejunkies, ANBU, and Aone showed up.

I remember when ETG was only my group, Animeco, and NLA. I remember the day we released the first R.O.D. OVA and the major flood of people looking for it in AC's channel while our channel had no one and we were giving out superfast downloads of it ^_^.

Yeah, I know Live-eviL began in July, 2001, and had its first release in very early September of the same year. That release being eX-driver OAV 1. I know BakaMX began on December 25th, 2000. Someone should chronicle this stuff, it's interesting Maybe a wiki-type site.

Anime-Kissaten began roughly in September of 2000. Recruiting began in anticipation of the first HxH DVD release (2000/9/20), though I don't know the exact dates as all the original members are now gone. I'm pretty sure Anime-Fansubs came before us, and I seem to recall them being third or fourth among the major digisub groups at the time, though I don't recall who (other than AnimeFactory), the others were.

Nope. ADV is indeed a case of fans going pro. Their very first catalogue release was Devil Hunter Yohko, a single episode, sub-only VHS release that a friend of mine proudly features as a part of his collection, no matter how often I tell him how dumb that show was. And then he went and bought the anniversary DVD they released last year. I'm tellin' ya, there's no helpin' some people.

Yohko was a VHS release, but it was not a fansub. It was a legitimate licensed tape.

I'm not sure the ADV people were ever fansubbers, but they were definitely fans. One worked in a video store and one or both were in a college anime club.

Mangascreener is probably the oldest manga group...it was originally known as Ryokuren and has been around for 6 years.

After Otakon 2000 (Aug), I went looking for info on a show called Love Hina because I loved the 4 eps I saw when they previewed the fansubs there. Among my searches I found a website that shared all the Love Hina eps that had been subbed at that point. Most of them where Anime-Fansubs, but the first one was done by Anime-Factory. After getting my friend involved in a little download frenzy, we found another show completed and released by Anime-Factory called Candidate for Goddess and it looked like it was done before Love Hina, probably in early 2000. I don't recall anything before those 2 shows that I would have considered digi-subbed the way we know it now. So I would have to give the Kudos for oldest group to Anime Factory. But I would have to say that biggest catalyst that propelled popular digi-subbing was Love Hina.

Wow! I guess it makes sense that they decided to fully focus on Candidate for Goddess after 3 eps of Love Hina. The quality of CfG was superb compared to the other shows being released in 2000. But they did have a reputation of taking their time with releases, so I'm not surprised other groups quickly coagulated together to remedy the wait time. It also seems that Anime-Fansubs is still around while Anime-Factory has disappeared, so I guess Anime-Fansubs gets the prize for longest surviving fansub group.

Wow! I guess it makes sense that they decided to fully focus on Candidate for Goddess after 3 eps of Love Hina. The quality of CfG was superb compared to the other shows being released in 2000. But they did have a reputation of taking their time with releases, so I'm not surprised other groups quickly coagulated together to remedy the wait time. It also seems that Anime-Fansubs is still around while Anime-Factory has disappeared, so I guess Anime-Fansubs gets the prize for longest surviving fansub group.

- Fubared

As AnimeFactory's last release was Macross Zero Ep04 (A joint with Anime-Fansubs), just over a month ago, I don't think it's safe to say they "disappeared". They may not be the most active, but then, this is their normal pace (as you yourself pointed out).